America The Stalwart
Despite the failings of our political class, America is still the greatest nation on Earth.
Just last week, we saw one of the most depressing and frustrating indictments of America’s political leadership that has occurred in my lifetime – or anyone else’s, for that matter. Yes, I’m talking about the awful ‘debate’ between two grumpy old men who have served as President of the United States for about seven more years than they ever should have. Both men – Joe Biden and Donald Trump – are fundamentally unsuited and unfit for the office they are campaigning for. Neither man is up to the challenges that America will face at home or abroad in the next four years. Biden and Trump each have their own specific issues that plague their respective candidacies, but the ultimate verdict is the same: they belong nowhere near the Oval Office or the most powerful job in the world.
Trump is a carnival barking sideshow clown; a low-rent P.T. Barnum rip-off who wouldn’t be out of place as a caricature in a Dickens novel. He claimed to have won an election he very clearly lost, bringing his sore loser tour around the country and refusing to simply go away to play golf at one of his overpriced country clubs. He adores foreign strongmen – people who play him like a fiddle by flattering his painfully fragile ego. Trump’s policy prescriptions vacillate wildly between extremes, with total unpredictability as to what he may argue for next; it all seems to depend on who spoke to him last. And he just happens to be one of the most outwardly and publicly immoral men to hold the highest office in the land, to boot.
Biden is a shell of a man who can barely walk fifteen feet without assistance from his overbearing and incredibly annoying Edith Wilson-esque wife. His brain is incoherent mush: confusing world leaders for one another, struggling to put together words into a cogent sentence, and claiming he finally “beat Medicare,” whatever that means. Joe Biden has always been a liar – claiming his first wife was killed by a drunk driver, saying his son Beau died in Iraq, and taking the personal biography of a British politician as his own – but now he can’t even keep his lies straight. He rarely seems to know where he is or what he is supposed to be doing at any given point in time, something not exactly great to see in the most powerful office on Earth. And given these cognitive deficiencies, his administration is run by the nuttiest progressive activists in the Democratic firmament.
In short, we’re left with two abhorrent, unqualified choices as major party nominees for the leadership of the free world. Nixon/Kennedy, this ain’t. Still, as the title of this piece implies, I’m quite optimistic about the future of this great nation. This Independence Day – our 248th – I’ll tell you why.
The totally justifiable negativity around this upcoming presidential election has been overshadowing the fundamental truth about our nation: that we remain strong constitutionally, civically, geopolitically, and economically. In each of those critical realms, we are far stronger than our peers, friend or foe. We are incredibly blessed to be Americans, living in the greatest nation on Earth. In spite of our many problems, we are still in very good shape both relative to other nations and to our own past.
America continues to be the preeminent global power, in economic and strategic terms. Our investment environment is generally good, our stock markets are the envy of the world, and our companies lead the planet in innovation and financial and technological prowess. Foreigners seek out American companies to do business with, gain industry expertise from, and license their brands. Even in the inflationary environment we currently reside in, the United States is much better off than our peers. Our taxes are lower, our wages higher, and our currency stronger. Compared to our European brethren, we live in enormous homes with countless luxuries – air conditioning, laundry machines, dishwashers, and more. That’s to say nothing of the cars!
For all the issues we face geopolitically – and that’s mostly what I spend my time writing about – we remain the top dog on the world stage. The global order is oriented around American norms, American ideas, and American hard power. Our navy, although no longer the largest, is the most powerful and impressive. Our military has a truly worldwide presence, with bases in dozens of friendly countries and joint military agreements with many more. We exert an unparalleled diplomatic heft – even if we overrely on it – in international institutions and among the various nations of the world, truly holding a geopolitical megaphone. The path to world power goes through us, and nobody since 1991 has been tempted enough to come for that title.
Our constitutional order is robust and durable, despite what the Cassandras on both left and right argue. We have been a constitutional republic for nigh-on 235 years now – the longest continuing governmental system that currently exists.[1] Our constitution has weathered several existential crises and major stress tests during that period, all the while anchoring our nation as it has grown into the global powerhouse it is today. The Constitution has stood strong through multiple economic crashes, including the Great Depression and 2008 Recession. It has endured a Civil War, the burning of the capital by a foreign invader, two World Wars, the Cold War, a monstrous terrorist attack on our financial and political centers, and numerous smaller conflicts. It has kept us free and safeguarded our rights through fundamental alterations in the fabric of American governance and civic life, massive population growth and incorporation of new immigrants, and more than one worldwide pandemic.
Recent developments have only cemented that stalwart status. Even though our political leadership, both in Congress and the Executive, has been sorely lacking for at least the past decade, our judiciary has manfully carried the flame of constitutionality. The decisions of the Supreme Court in cases like Dobbs, Bruen, Loper Bright, and Jarkesy have pushed American law and jurisprudence in a profoundly federalist and originalist direction, reducing overbearing executive power, restoring traditional interpretations of basic rights, and lessening the Court’s modern role as a lawmaker versus a legal interpreter. The states have jumped at this opportunity, allowing the voting public to have a greater say in their local legislation and promoting the idea that regional differences in culture can be established in law. This is how the American system is meant to work – separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, and a premium on individual rights.
This is crucial because it gets to the heart of the matter: that America is not and has never been defined by our leadership class. America is us, the ordinary folks who go about our daily lives making this such a great nation. We raise our children, care for our families, and work the jobs that have turned our polity from a provincial backwater to a world hyperpower in just under 250 years. We are still starting and running businesses, still taking risks and innovating, still volunteering our time in our local communities, and still building connections with our fellow Americans, regardless of their political beliefs. We share with one another our values, our cultures, and our faiths. We are free to live our lives as we see fit, even if our neighbors live entirely different ones. Yet we are one America.
This is what really matters. The strength of our country, going back to that fateful July day nearly two-and-a-half centuries ago, has always been our citizenry. The men in Philadelphia who signed their names to that world historic document promoting “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” did so not for their own edification and ego, but to give their fellow Americans the opportunity for a better government and stronger society. It was not our Founding Fathers or their political successors who built America into the glorious nation it is today. It was the average citizen of this great land. It was our fathers and mothers, our grandparents, our great-grandparents, and so on. And it is not our political elite that defines America today. It is us; you and I. And that is why I am supremely confident in the future of our nation: I believe in the American people. They haven’t let us down yet. Let’s keep that trend going.
Happy Independence Day.
[1] The British parliamentary system has been extant for much longer, but the power relationship between monarch and Parliament has so significantly changed over that period that it is hard to consider it the same political order.